REEL’s Neurodiversity/2e Collaborative hosted a panel focused on supporting families in the complex and emotionally-laden process of building their students’ self-advocacy skills. Tiffany Nielsen, Dean of Students at Helios School, and educational consultant Heather Johanson of The Actias School, shared the strategies they’ve used and what they have seen for schools working to help families develop students’ self-advocacy skills.

Do you have a question you’d like the column to answer? You can email asklucy@reel2e.org. My autistic 2e teenager is highly resistant to changing his ways of doing things. I've encouraged him to write down important events in his calendar, but he won't because he "doesn't need to" (even though he inevitably forgets). His inbox has nearly 4,000 messages because he refuses to delete or archive emails. Whenever I try to talk to him about this stuff, we end up in a tug-of-war. Is